Son of Communists Burns Money

by Editor
June 11, 2017 at 7:16 pm

https://www.smartertimes.com/1535/son-of-communists-burns-money

Under the headline, "Oskar Eustis: The First Time I Burned Money (and Found My Calling)," the Times arts section features a first-person piece by Mr. Eustis, who "has been the artistic director of the Public Theater since 2005." Highlights:

I was born in 1958 and came of age in the '70s. I was raised in Minnesota by progressive Democrats (on my father and stepmother's side) and deeply committed Communists (my mother and stepfather).... After my parents' divorce, my mother married a second-generation Communist. She then converted and remained a passionate and committed party member until her death in 2014. ...

In Ann Arbor, the Living presented the first site-specific piece I had ever seen: "The Legacy of Cain." It brought the audience on a procession through Ann Arbor, stopping at buildings, from the R.O.T.C. to the police station, which it saw as representative of the military-industrial complex. At each building, it led a ceremony, formal and almost religious, to reject the building and all it stood for. At the bank, the Living handed out Monopoly money to ceremoniously burn, representing our rejection of the commodity-driven financial culture of capitalism. The audience burned the play money; I burned my real money, all of it. It was a foolish, even silly gesture — although I don't remember how much, I'm sure I had to borrow from a friend just to get back to Minnesota. But I'd had an experience that would stay with me forever: The seed had been planted that my radical artistic impulses could be connected to my political engagement.

The problem with the first-person approach is that it prevents the Times from subjecting the story to the sort of skeptical questioning that makes for better journalism. How can someone have been a committed communist all the way to 2014? Did she acknowledge the crimes of the Soviet Union? If the police represent "the military-industrial complex," who will protect vulnerable members of society from predatory criminals such as rapists or murderers? And why burn the money instead of giving it away to someone else who might have needed the money more?

The Times hasn't even enabled the comments feature on the online version of the article, so readers who want to raise any of these issues alongside the article on the Times website are out of luck.

The next time a Times journalist calls up a business or politician with pesky or hostile questions, maybe the subject of the story should just say, "sorry, I want the Oskar Eustis treatment — that is, the ability to tell my side of the story in my own words, unchallenged by probing questions or indeed any questions from Times journalists." As a business tactic, I suppose this is cheaper for the Times than hiring reporters. And there may be some instances where the first-person is appropriate. It's not clear to me that this particular case was one of them.

Incidentally, the Times has a long-running quasi-obsession with children of communists. There weren't really ever that many American communists (at least so we are reassured by those who thought concern about them was paranoid), and yet it's almost to the point where one wonders whether are any of them remaining who haven't yet been recipients of warmly nostalgic coverage in the Times' columns. It's as if children of communists are a New York Times demographic niche target.

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